Bhopal, October 21 : The process of filing nominations for the forthcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly elections officially commenced on Saturday, with the issuance of notification for the polls, according to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer in Bhopal.
The notification was released earlier this morning.
The state’s assembly elections, which are currently under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are slated for a single-phase polling event on November 17, and the vote counting will occur on December 3.
Candidates can submit their nominations for the elections to the 230-member state assembly from October 21 to October 30, while the scrutiny of nominations will take place on October 31, as per officials.
The window for withdrawing nominations remains open until November 2.
This time, over 5.60 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the state. Among them, 2,88,25,607 are male, 2,72,33,945 are female, and 1,373 belong to the third gender category. In addition, the state has 75,303 service voters, including 73,020 men and 2,284 women, bringing the total number of voters to 5,61,36,229.
Among these voters, 6,53,640 are senior citizens, 5,05,146 are ‘divyang’ voters (persons with disabilities), and 99 are non-resident Indian (NRI) voters.
Following the addition and deletion of names, a total of 16,83,790 voters were added to the electoral rolls, election officials reported.
The age-wise breakdown of voters is as follows: 18-19 years (22,36,564), 20-29 (1,41,76,780), 30-39 (1,45,03,508), 40-49 (1,06,97,673), 50-59 (74,85,436), 60-69 (43,45,064), 70-79 (19,72,260), and 80+ (6,53,640), resulting in a total of 5,60,60,925 voters, according to election officials.
The voting booth with the lowest number of voters is situated in Balaghat district’s Sonevani forest village, with only 42 registered voters.
In the 2018 assembly polls, the highest voter turnout was recorded at 89.13% in the Sailana constituency of Ratlam district, while the Jobat segment in Alirajpur district had the lowest turnout at 52.84%, as per officials.
The Lakhnadoun assembly seat in Seoni district boasts the most polling booths at 407, while the Indore-3 assembly constituency has the fewest polling booths at 193, officials noted.
With the Congress announcing candidates for 229 seats and the ruling BJP declaring candidates for 136 seats, the upcoming elections promise to be hotly contested. Other parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are also entering the fray.
In the 2018 MP assembly polls, the Congress secured 114 seats in the 230-member House, while the BJP won 109 seats. After forming a coalition government under Kamal Nath with the support of the SP, the BSP, and independent candidates, the Nath government collapsed after 15 months when a section of Congress MLAs, primarily loyal to Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, joined the BJP. The saffron party subsequently returned to power in March 2020, with Shivraj Singh Chouhan reinstated as chief minister.
